- Zu dir, zu dir, gunàika,
Vo cercando il mio ben,
En la isla de Jamaica,
Du soir jusqu’au matin!
(Italo Calvino, Il barone rampante)
Why do writers decide at some point of their life, more or less freely, to use a language other than their
own as a tool for their art? How do they hybridize their own native language using different languages,
dialects, dead or artificial languages, in the most varied way, from code mixing to pastiche? What are the
challenges literary multilingualism poses for translators?
One of the research group CoCoLaC's aims is to compare different languages and cultures from a
contrastive perspective: comparing structures, discursive strategies, rhetorical styles, ways of representing
the world, narratives.
The CoCoLaC research community will organize a seminar on the theme Writing Literary Worlds in a Foreign Language on 24 September 2021 in a hybrid mode.
Our seminar will discuss the literary production of non-native speakers/writers.
The subject lends itself to being analysed according to different methodologies: from the phenomena of
linguistic interference to stylistic deviance, from the cross-cultural pragmatic clashes to the emergence of
cultural stereotypes (and its literary deconstruction), from the practices of bilingualism and multilingualism
up to the aesthetics of literary multilingualism.
However, special attention should be paid to literary / dramaturgical / critical production written by nonnative
speakers living in geographical areas where the language in question is not locally dominant (e.g. adrama written
in German by a Swedish writer living in Finland).
Here are some potential topics related to the seminar’s main theme:
The languages of the seminar are primarily French, German, Italian and Spanish (the ‘official’ languages of
CoCoLaC). Abstracts / PowerPoints presentations are to be prepared in English. However, papers in English,
Finnish and Swedish are accepted as well.
There is no restriction about the languages under study.
All researchers working on the subject are invited to present a paper, not exceeding 20-25 minutes.
You are kindly asked to send us by e-mail the title of your presentation and a short abstract by 31st March
2020. Information about the acceptance of the proposal will be sent to all by 12th April 2020.
The organizing committee
Enrico Garavelli Christian Rink Begoña Sanromán Vilas Elina Suomela-Härmä